Various kinds of stitches can be produced by a modern sewing machine, but it is necessary to carefully adjust the parts of the machine to correspond with the stitches to be made. For example, a zigzag stitch requires a lateral movement of the machine needle in addition to a vertical movement, and the needle requires adjustment from its maximum lateral amplitude for zigzag stitches to a zero amplitude for straight stiches. In this type of sewing machine, the needle hole in a needle plate and a corresponding hole in the presser foot are in general laterally elongated to meet the maximum amplitude required by a zigzag stitch. When the needle drops into the centers of these holes, stitches are often skipped, particularly when straight stitching such difficult materials as tricot, crepe de Chine and the like, since the needle holes are large and the effect of the presser foot is weak in their centers. In modern machines, such skipped stitches are eliminated by a mechanism which reduces the laterllay elongated needle hole of the needle plate to a small circular hole for straight or chain stitches, and this mechanism must be manually operated to correspond to the stitch type desired. Additionally, a straight stitch presser foot must be installed in order to press the part of the cloth nearest the needle. However, the machine operator often forgets such operations. For example, if the presser foot is changed for the straight stitch, the lateral movement mechanism for the needle may not be readjusted out of the zigzag setting. Here, when the sewing machine is driven, the needle will move laterally, onto a surface of the presser foot, and will break. If, on the other hand, the presser foot is changed for zigzag stitches, the needle hole in the needle plate may still be set for straight stitches and the needle will again be dropped onto a surface of the needle plate, and will likewise break.